deegee

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Posts by deegee

• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,

  You still have not answered my questions.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,

  Now that you've told us all about free will and zero sum could you please answer my questions by providing EXPLICIT and DIRECT answers to the questions asked?

  If God supposedly can design a dimension of existence (the afterlife according to you) to be free from:

  1. The evidence would not show beyond all doubt that the diversity of life rested on millions of years of relentless competition, death and destruction. Life would not have been all but wiped out in mass extinctions at least five times in its history.

  2. The predominant economy in the natural world would not be parasitic and predatory. The world really would show the loving qualities of its maker without having to ignore the majority of the facts.

  7.Natural disasters would not kill millions of earth's inhabitants. The planet would not be designed to destroy life.

  Why couldn't he do similarly for the physical/natural world?

  What's the point of creating a physical/natural world where 1, 2 & 7 exist if there is another dimension in which they don't exist?

  What does God get out of having these 2 dimensions of existence which have starkly different characteristics?

  If you had the option to create a dimension in which 1, 2 & 7 do not exist versus the option to create a dimension in which 1, 2 & 7 do exist, which option would you chose and why?
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,
  

  "Our physical bodies and some features of our minds came to existence through natural laws.
  Only our immortal soul was made to be an image of God."

  If God supposedly can design a dimension of existence (the afterlife according to you) to be free from:

  1. The evidence would not show beyond all doubt that the diversity of life rested on millions of years of relentless competition, death and destruction. Life would not have been all but wiped out in mass extinctions at least five times in its history.

  2. The predominant economy in the natural world would not be parasitic and predatory. The world really would show the loving qualities of its maker without having to ignore the majority of the facts.
  

  7.Natural disasters would not kill millions of earth's inhabitants. The planet would not be designed to destroy life.
  

  Why couldn't he do similarly for the physical/natural world?

  What's the point of creating a physical/natural world where 1, 2 & 7 exist if there is another dimension in which they don't exist?

  What does God get out of having these 2 dimensions of existence which have starkly different characteristics?

  If you had the option to create a dimension in which 1, 2 & 7 do not exist versus the option to create a dimension in which 1, 2 & 7 do exist, which option would you chose and why?
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,

  Since you are convinced that you should live forever just as the JWs are, the only difference being, you have switched venues from earth to heaven, then no amount of reasoning will make you see otherwise.

  I'm surprised that you gave up on being a JW - apparently heaven comes with more perks?

  For your sake, I do hope that you will live on after death. Be sure to let us know what the afterlife is like and about your conversations with God.

  I understand. Some people just can't deal with the fact that they become nothing at death.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,

  "Catholics believe the human nature must be in soul and body forever."

  Just reiterate:
  

  - every function which you have attributed to the immaterial soul is performed by our brains.

  - the functions which you have attributed to the immaterial soul are altered when one experiences brain injury or neurological disorders.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,

  If I'm wrong so oblivion is reality ironically I will never know

  It's good that you are open to this possibility since, of the millions of the dead, no one has been back to tell us what the afterlife is like and about their conversations with God.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,

  "This is just your opinion about justice."

  One sure way to know whether this is just my opinion about justice - try telling a court of law that it is your children who should be penalized if you should commit a crime.

  Please be sure to let us know the outcome if you should ever find yourself in this situation.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  Cofty,

  The discussion is still going on because John_Mann can't bring himself to confront and come to terms with his mortality.

  He needs something to make him feel good about death so he went from believing that he was going to live forever on a Paradise earth to believing that his soul will live on after he dies - he exchanged one venue for another: earth for heaven.

  In trying to make himself feel good about death, he tenaciously tries to defend his indefensible alternate faith of Catholicism which has promised him immortality in the afterlife, which cannot be verified.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  John_Mann,

  "@deegee
  OMG! Please consider my paranormal experience as an ordinary delusion.
  Nothing what I'm talking about depends on this personal experience."

  OK, so I guess this means you can't specifically tell when it is the unconscious dynamics of your mind at work versus when God is communicating with you.

  You are not able to make a clear distinction between these two things.

  It certainly is very difficult to make the distinction since no one knows what is buried in their subconscious and since God does not explicitly and unequivocally make it clear that it is he who is giving a person a vision, or speaking to the person, or inserting thoughts into a person's mind, or answering the person's prayer or showing the person a "sign". People are left to figure out all by themselves whether it was God who actually communicated with them.

  So a person cannot unequivocally, beyond the shadow of a doubt tell whether a "vision" was their own product or whether it originated from an external source.
• 
  496

  This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

  various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

  i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  deegee

  "This is just your opinion about justice."

  No John_Mann. This is not just my opinion, but also the opinion of the world's justice systems.

  It is clear that God's creation has a keener sense of justice and empathy than he does in the matter of innocents suffering for the guilty.

  Why would you want to serve a God like that?

  Also, if I am not mistaken, the concept of transmission of sin from the guilty to the innocent is rejected by every major religion, except Christianity.

  Justice has been defined to "consist in rendering to everyone according to his moral deserts; good if he be good, and evil if evil - for the purpose of promoting goodness and discouraging guilt."

  If this be a recognized standard of right in human affairs, surely it should not be ignored in dealing with "divine" actions.

  Let us take the case of an earthly father, who had, say, seven children, six of whom were thoroughly bad, and the seventh as good as human nature could possibly be.

  Now, would it be considered just upon the part of that father to punish the one good child for the misdeeds of the six bad ones? Such conduct would ensure for its perpetrator a general and an emphatic condemnation.

  If a judge were knowingly to sentence to death an innocent man as a substitute for a criminal, the act would provoke universal detestation, and the judge's judicial position would in all probability be forfeited.

  Is it consistent for Christians to ascribe an act to their God which good men would refuse to perform? We think not.

  The children of criminal parents are not blamed, but are rather pitied, for being innocent victim of others.

  Children cannot be ethically punished for the sins of their parents. People not alive at the time of a sin cannot be held responsible for that "original sin."

  Ethical systems teach that everyone is responsible for their own sins.